


The Legend of Captain Fantastic

by trimalchio



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 12:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3120092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trimalchio/pseuds/trimalchio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stevie's leaving for Los Angeles and Xabi's good at getting his attention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Legend of Captain Fantastic

“My hero, my mate.”

“Stop reading that crap,” Stevie said, “I'm not dying.”

“It's what Xabi wrote on Twitter. It showed up in my Twitter feed!” Alex insisted.

“No fucking way. He knows I'm not dead, right? I've texted him recently.”

“Define recently.”

“Within the last six months.”

“That's not recently.”

“That's besides the point,” Stevie replied, “Xabi is not the kind of person to be overly sentimental. He doesn't even like Phil Collins. You can't be nostalgic and not enjoy a bit of Phil Collins on a Sunday.”

Alex sighed, “That makes absolutely no sense. And Xabi is Coldplay's number one fan. He is overly sentimental.”

She waved her phone in his face, “Look at it, Steven. He made a tweet and it is dripping with anguish over prior partings.”

“We're going to Los Angeles, not Heaven. There's nothing to be anguished about!”

She laughed, “Tell that to your adoring public. They've been making tributes to you, ever since they found out. I have a favorite; I quote 'Gerrard's up there with the legends now. Respect to eternal captain.' Are you sure you haven't died?”

Eternal Captain?  For fuck's sake.  Stevie groaned, rubbing his face with both hands. Alex's laugh somewhat sounded like a cackle. At least someone was enjoying herself. He grabbed his cell phone to cosset himself in the office, to call Xabi.

“Hello?”

“Xabi! It's Steven.”

“I know it's you. Your name was on the caller ID.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your tweet. It made it seem like I was dead.”

“I still...I'm not sure...”

“Dead. Died? Expired? Shuffled off our mortal coil?”

“I know what dead means. But what does that have to do with you? And me, for that matter.”

“Your tweet is a little bit overdramatic. I'm just moving teams, not dying,” Stevie repeated himself.

“Ah. The transfer. I don't know if you can hear it, but this transfer has a capital 'T.' It's that definitive.”

“It's not definitive. It's nothing. People transfer all the time. You do it every five years or so.”

“But I'm not the one who spent my whole life carrying Liverpool. I only spent five years carrying all of you around,” Xabi said, “Alas, I heard the calling of another lover.”

“Don't say shit like that.”

“Like what?”

“Calling me your lover.”

“I meant that Madrid was the other lover,” Xabi replied, “But is there something you'd like to expand upon, Steven? I fancy myself an amateur psychologist sometimes.”

“There's nothing to talk about.”

“I'm sensing hostility. Would you like to talk about it? When you assumed that I was referring to you as a lover, does that have to do with us?”

“Don't call it 'us.' Like we broke up or something.”

“Us. We were an 'us.' Us, us, us.”

“No, Alex and me, we're an 'us.'  You and Nagore, an 'us.' You and me, we were...I don't know the word, but we were not an 'us.'”

“We were totally an 'us.' We shared so much. Remember that time you kissed me.”

“I was high on victory. It's a very powerful drug. I would have kissed Rafa if he was standing next to me.”

“But after that.”

“Shut up,” Stevie said, “I just wanted to clear up the fact that I have yet to die. Not to bring up this shit.”

“It's why you don't text me all that often, isn't it?”

“Neither do you. You don't call me to clear up anything with your life. You didn't even tell me you transferred to Bayern.”

“It's called München, before it's called Bayern. Bayern is the region of Germany.”

“Whatever. You didn't tell me. I found out from Alex. She reads Twitter more than I do.”

“I didn't realize we had to update each other of our lives.”

“You don't. But if we're an 'us,' I'd expect a little more than...that, whatever that was.”

“I'm sorry, Steven. I do think we are an 'us' regardless.”

There was an awkward silence. Stevie didn't know what to say.

He started to a restart, “How is Guardiola?”

“Bald.”

“Good, I guess? Do you like him?”

“He's lot more like José Mourinho than he'd probably like to know.”

“Like José wears a toupee kind of similarity?”

Xabi took a few minutes to answer, “If we were to stop talking and started hating each other, I could see us being like them. You'd be Mourinho and I'd be Guardiola.”

Stevie grunted.

“Was that a scoff? What was the scoff for?” Xabi demanded, teasingly. Always teasing. That was nice.

“So I'm the insane one with a massive inferiority complex and you're the witty, sophisticated one who is praised for his dress sense? I see your game, Alonso.”

“If the shoe fits, Gerrard.”

“At least I'm not the bald one.”

“Perhaps my analogy will not play itself out that thoroughly.”

“You hope so.”

“It's going to be strange, you know? No Steven Gerrard on Liverpool. No more Captain Fantastic. How's going to be? Playing second fiddle to Robbie Keane?”

“I'll be fine. My shoulders could use a break. Let Robbie Keane take the wheel for a bit,” Stevie replied, “How will you be? Now, you'll have a tailor-made excuse to visit me. No one wants to go on holiday to Liverpool, but now I'll be in LA. Alex'll probably want to live near the beach.”

“I promise I'll visit you,” Xabi said, having made similar promises a number of times with no follow-through.

“You should think about your inevitable arrival in the MLS. Come to LA, too.”

“I'd prefer New York,” Xabi said.

“So? It's the same country. Stop by, when you're the area, right?”

“Los Angeles and New York are 3000 miles apart. I'm currently closer to you than I would be, if we were both to be in the MLS.”

“Jesus, America's big, huh?”

“One of the largest countries around.”

“Traveling is going to be a pain and a half, isn't it?”

“Probably,” Xabi said, “I know this is a vast subject change, but remember that time you kissed me. Not during the Champions League. After.”

“I remember.”

“Why aren't we that close anymore?”

“Why aren't we close enough to snog each other anymore? Because you fucked off to Madrid and now I'm fucking off to Los Angeles.”

“It feels wrong for you to fuck off to LA. Like they don't deserve you. They don't get you.”

“Well, I'm too old to be hanging around this dump. They want someone to get them a trophy and I've got fucked up knees and fucked up ankles and generally fucked up legs,” Stevie wanted to be matter of fact about it. It was the plain truth. There was no way around it: he was old. It was just how things were, but it came out bitter. Xabi knew how to pick at scabs like a pro.

“I'm tired and I have training in the morning.”

“Okay, I'll talk to you another time.”

“Promise me one thing, though, Steven.”

“What?”

“You won't go around kissing your new teammates. I'll be so jealous, if I hear any rumors.”

“Jesus. Bye.”

“I promise we'll visit in the Summer,” Xabi said, “Me, Nagore, and the kids. They'll want to see you guys.”

Stevie hung up the phone. It was the latest in increasingly sporadic phone conversations, replete with immediately forsaken promises, that made him ache. The legend of Captain Fantastic had to die sometime and so did the saga of Xabi and Stevie.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N 1: So one of my New Years's resolutions was to write more and this is an example of willing myself to write.
> 
> A/N 2: Thanks for reading!


End file.
